A Touch Of Frost Read Online Free PDF

gone straight to the bar and was pouring herself a drink. Well, at least she had rationed herself at the function, so he’d let this one go by without comment.
    “I’ll just give the Taylors a ring to make sure Karen’s all right,” he told her.
    “Why shouldn’t she be?” his wife snapped.
    A touch of jealousy there, he thought. He’d been noticing it more and more of late.
    Loosening his bow tie, he walked over to the phone and jabbed at the push buttons.
    Debbie’s parents were in bed. It was her father who eventually answered the phone, yawning loudly and at first not taking in what Dawson was saying. “No, Max, Karen’s not here. Isn’t she with you?”
    Dawson stared at the phone in disbelief. Had the fool gone mad? “What the hell are you talking about?” he shouted. “She was going to the cinema with Debbie, then spending the night with you. It was all arranged.”
    “I know,” yawned Taylor. “Debbie waited outside the Odeon, but Karen never showed up. We assumed you’d taken her to the dance with you.”
    “ You assumed? Why the bloody hell didn’t you phone to check?”
    “Well . . . we assumed . . .”
    “You stupid sod!” roared Dawson, his face red with anger. “Hold on.” He put down the phone and charged up the staircase to Karen’s room. Flinging open the door, he looked in. The curtains were drawn, and the room was quiet and still. No sound of breathing. He fumbled for the light switch and clicked it on. Karen’s bed was empty, still neatly made up from the morning. He raced down the stairs, grabbed the phone, and shouted, “She’s not here! If anything has happened to my daughter, I’ll kill you, you bastard!” He was shaking with rage.
    “What is it?” asked Clare, clutching his arm. “Where’s Karen?”
    “That’s what I’m damn well going to find out.” He raised the phone. “Is Debbie there?”
    “Of course, Max . . . but she’s asleep.”
    “Then wake her, you fool. She might know where Karen’s got to.”
    As he held on for what seemed like hours, anger fighting with apprehension, Clare drifted over to the bar and refilled her glass. “Your daughter is missing,” he snarled, “and all you can do is get bloody drunk.”
    Clare burst into tears. He turned his back on her and waited impatiently for Debbie.
     
    He scuttled through the woods, eyes and ears alert. He thought he had heard something. A scream. A piercing sound that tore a jagged hole in the silence. But all was quiet now . . . as quiet as the woods ever were at night above the rustlings and the murmurings and the moanings. Sometimes, when he was lucky, the murmurings and the moanings came from lovers, hot, sweating, coupling lovers too busy to realize they were being observed. The things some of them got up to . . . you’d never believe it! And some of the girls were worse than the men . . . far worse.
    He squeezed between two bushes, taking a shortcut. He knew all the shortcuts. There was something in the long grass. Something black. He picked it up. A brassiere. A black, lacy, deep-cupped brassiere, the fastener hanging by a thread as if someone couldn’t wait to undo those fiddling little hooks. He pressed it to his cheek and slowly rubbed it up and down the side of his face then, folding it carefully, pushed it deep into his pocket.
    On through more bushes. The moonlight gleamed on something silvery white. He stiffened and stood stock still. It was the white of bare flesh. Holding his breath and moving quietly, with the skill of long practice, he inched forward, parting branches so he could get a better view.
    Dear sweet Mother of God!
    On the ground, ahead of him, lay the naked body of a young girl, her face raw and battered, the mouth and chin hidden under a mask of blood. Her body was mottled with livid green bruises. Strewn around, on the grass, her clothes. He crouched, making himself smaller in case whoever had done this was still lurking about. He listened.